Fannie Flagg Biography

Fannie Flagg is an American actress, comedian and author. She was born on September 21st, 1944. She is famous for her roles on the show Match Game and the 1987 novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

She was born in Birmingham, Alabama and she is the only child to Marion Leona and William Hurbert Neal, Jr. She spent her childhood in Birmingham area. She was encouraged by her father at a young age to start writing and she wrote her first stage play at the age of 10. She entered the Miss Alabama pageant as a teen where she won a scholarship to a local acting school for one year.

She could not use her birth name for her acting career as there were already actors registered with that name and she had only one hour to choose her stage name. She chose Fannie as a suggestion from her grand mother and Flagg as a suggestion from a friend.

Fannie Flagg Age | Is Fannie Flagg Still Alive | How Old Is Fannie Flagg | Fannie Flagg Dead Or Alive | Fannie Flagg Still Alive

She was born on September 21st, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama. She is 74 years old as of 2018.

Fannie Flagg

Fannie Flagg Gay | Fannie Flagg Lesbian

She was in a relationship with American writer Rita Mae Brown in the late 1970’s and the two met at a party in the Hollywood Hills. The two lived together briefly in Charlottesville, Virginia before breaking up. Flagg has also dated Susan Flannery for eight years.

Fannie Flagg Latest Book

Fried Green Tomatoes, Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, and I Still Dream About You: Three Bestselling Novels

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion

Fannie Flagg The Whole Town’s Talking

Lordor Nordstrom created, in his wisdom, not only a lively town and a prosperous legacy for himself but also a beautiful final resting place for his family, friends, and neighbors yet to come. “Resting place” turns out to be a bit of a misnomer, however. Odd things begin to happen, and it starts the whole town talking.

Fannie Flagg Redbird Christmas

“‘Another Chicago Winter’Oswald T. Campbell, aged fifty-two, down-and-out in a Chicago winter, is given only months to live unless he moves South… He finds himself in the small town of Lost River, Alabama, where the residents are friendly if feud-prone and eccentric to a fault. One of them, Roy, keeps a red cardinal, a once wounded bird called Jack.

Patsy, a sad, sweet little kid with a crippled leg, from the trailer park up in the woods, takes to dropping by the store – and falls in love with Jack. Flagg takes us on an emotional roller-coaster ride through the lives and hearts of an engaging crew of misfits, fixers and ordinary good-hearted folk, set against the vivid natural backdrop of a mellow Alabama winter.”

Fannie Flagg Fried Green Tomatoes

Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the now-classic novel of two women in the 1980s; of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women–of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth–who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.

And as the past unfolds, the present–for Evelyn and for us–will never be quite the same again… “Airplanes and television have removed the Threadgoodes from the Southern scene. Happily for us, Fannie Flagg has preserved a whole community of them in a richly comic, poignant narrative that records the exuberance of their lives, the sadness of their departure.

Idgie Threadgoode is a true original: Huckleberry Finn would have tried to marry her!” –Harper Lee, Author ofTo Kill a Mockingbird “A real novel and a good one… [from] the busy brain of a born storyteller.” –The New York Times “It’s very good, in fact, just wonderful.” –Los Angeles Times “Funny and macabre.” –The Washington Post “Courageous and wise.” –Houston Chronicle

Fannie Flagg Grease

Experience the friendships, romances and adventures of a group of high school kids in the 1950s. Welcome to the singing and dancing world of “Grease,” the most successful movie musical of all time. A wholesome exchange student (Olivia Newton-John) and a leather-clad Danny (John Travolta) have a summer romance, but will it cross clique lines?

Fannie Flagg I Still Dream About You

Real estate agent Maggie Fortenberry works at Red Mountain Reality, that has been going downhill since the death of its founder, comes up with a plan to save the business. The rival of their company Babs is unscrupulous real estate agent who hates Maggie and is determined to put her out of business.

Title I Still Dream about You: A NovelAuthor Fannie FlaggEdition reprint, large printPublisher Random House, 2010ISBN 1616649186, 9781616649180Length 590 pages

Fannie Flagg Match Game

Match Game is an American TV panel Show that was on NBC in 1962 and was revived several times over the years. The show had contestants trying to come up with answers to fill in blank questions, with the objective being to match answers given by celebrity panelists.

Fannie Flagg Quotes

“Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you are two steps ahead.”

“I wonder how many people don’t get the one they want, but end up with the one they’re supposed to be with.”

“You know, a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating, just the same.”

“Don’t give up before the miracle happens.”

“The ones that hurt the most always say the least.”

“Face it girls. I’m older and I have more insurance.”

“Are you a politician or does lying just run in your family?”

“You never know what’s in a person’s heart until they’re tested, do you?”

“It’s funny, when you’re a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you’re on the fast train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure did on me.”

“I believe in God, but I don’t think you have to go crazy to prove it.”

“People cain’t help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don’t you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak.”

“It’s funny, most people can be around someone and they gradually begin to love them and never know exactly when it happened; but Ruth knew the very second it happened to her. When Idgie had grinned at her and tried to hand her that jar of honey, all these feelings that she had been trying to hold back came flooding through her, and it was at that second in time that she knew she loved Idgie with all her heart.”

“You’re just a bee charmer, Idgie Threadgoode. That’s what you are, a bee charmer.”

“What was this power, this insidious threat, this invisible gun to her head that controlled her life . . . this terror of being called names? She had stayed a virgin so she wouldn’t be called a tramp or a slut; had married so she wouldn’t be called an old maid; faked orgasms so she wouldn’t be called frigid; had children so she wouldn’t be called barren; had not been a feminist because she didn’t want to be called queer and a man hater; never nagged or raised her voice so she wouldn’t be called a bitch . . . She had done all that and yet, still, this stranger had dragged her into the gutter with the names that men call women when they are angry.”

“That’s what I’m living on now, honey, dreams, dreams of what I used to do.”

“Oh it don’t make no kind of sense. Big ol’ ox like Grady won’t sit next to a colored child. But he eats eggs- shoot right outta chicken’s ass!”

“You know, a heart can be broken, but it still keeps a-beating just the same.”

“The line between the public life and the private life has been erased, due to the rapid decline of manners and courtesy. There is a certain crudeness and crassness that has suddenly become accepted behavior, even desirable.”

“By the way, is there anything sadder than toys on a grave?”

“being a successful person is not necessarily defined by what you have achieved, but by what you have overcome.”

“Dena had always been a loner. She did not feel connected to anything. Or anybody. She felt as if everybody else had come into the world with a set of instructions about how to live and someone had forgotten to give them to her. She had no clue what she was supposed to feel, so she had spent her life faking at being a human being, with no idea how other people felt. What was it like to really love someone? To really fit in or belong somewhere? She was quick, and a good mimic, so she learned at an early age to give the impression of a normal, happy girl, but inside she had always been lonely.”

“The food in the South is as important as food anywhere because it defines a person’s culture.”

“Daddy gave me real useful information to protect me in the real world. If anyone hits me, I’m not to hit them back. I wait until their back is turned, then hit them in the head with a brick.”

“…nobody was ever really ready to turn off their mother’s machine, no matter what they thought; to turn off the light of their childhood and walk away, just as if they were turning out a light and leaving a room.”

“Hazel always used to say There’s not enough darkness in the entire universe to snuff out the light of just one little candle.”

“There are magnificent beings on this earth, son, that are walking around posing as humans.”

“It’s always the darkest just before the glorious dawn.”

“Lately, it had been an endless procession of long, black nights and gray mornings, when her sense of failure swept over her like a five-hundred-pound wave; and she was scared. But it wasn’t death that she feared. She had looked down into that black pit of death and had wanted to jump in, once too often. As a matter of fact, the thought began to appeal to her more and more. She even knew how she would kill herself. It would be with a silver bullet. As round and as smooth as an ice-cold blue martini. She would place the gun in the freezer for a few hours before she did it, so it would feel frosty and cold against her head. She could almost feel the ice-cold bullet shooting through her hot, troubled brain, freezing the pain for good. The sound of the gun blast would be the last sound she would ever hear. And then… nothing. Maybe just the silent sound that a bird might hear, flying in the clean, cool air, high above the earth. The sweet, pure air of freedom. No, it wasn’t death she was afraid of. It was this life of hers that was beginning to remind her of that gray intensive care waiting room.”

“And so, as quietly as he had lived, he slipped out of town, leaving only a note behind: Well, that’s that. I’m off, and if you don’t believe I’m leaving, just count the days I’m gone. When you hear the phone not ringing, it’ll be me that’s not calling. Goodbye, old girl, and good luck.

Fannie Flagg Interview

A Work of Passion: An Interview with Fannie Flagg

Source; blog.booksamillion.com

BAM: You have a strong entertainment background. Why did you choose to pursue writing? And how did that happen?

When I was little, I started out wanting to be a writer, but I was so shy. In the 6th grade, my teacher was very concerned about me because I was so shy. She thought I might’ve been an abused child. But I always wanted to write.

Later, I went into theater to be a lighting technician. But while I was there, the theater director saw again that I was horribly shy. He wanted to help me get over that, and he started putting me in shows. The first shows I was in, I had a non-speaking part and was shaking all over.

He quietly continued to give me parts. At first it was non-speaking, then I would get a sentence, and finally he started putting me in roles. It really helped me get over my shyness, and I started acting. But I still wanted to write.

I moved to New York in the 1960s, and I made the move to become a writer. I had written some comedy sketches, and Upstairs Downstairs, a comedy club, bought the material. On the night of the performance, the girl who was supposed to perform the material had to drop out at the last minute, and they came to me to act it out. So I ended up acting the material I had written.

The night we opened, it just so happened that Allen Funt from Candid Camera was in the audience. He looked at the playbill, saw that I had written the material, and he wanted to hire me as a writer. So the second week I was in New York, I was hired as a writer for Candid Camera.

I wrote a piece of material, and the morning the actress was supposed to play the part, she called in sick. So Allen Funt told me to play the part since I had written the material. And that’s how I became an actress on Candid Camera.

I had wanted to be an writer all my life, but I kept falling into acting. And being terribly shy, it was hard for me.

Well, I was doing a Broadway show. I remember it so well. I was so unhappy. It was freezing cold, and I was having to fix my hair and curl my eyelashes, all the things girls have to do. I looked in the mirror and thought to myself, “Some actress would love to have this job, but you’re doing it and your heart’s not in it. You want to be a writer.”

The next day I gave my notice. I quit acting.

I moved home and took a little house in South Alabama. I started writing, and I got a book contract.

The first book was Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, and it was about growing up in Gulf Shores, AL. Then I wrote Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café which is also in Alabama.

When the studio optioned the rights to Fried Green Tomatoes, they asked me to write the screenplay. I declined because I wouldn’t know which characters to include. I was too close. Instead, I recommended a friend of mine, Carol Sobieski.

She came on to write, but she became ill and couldn’t finish it. They came back to me, and asked me to finish it up. So I came back to Alabama and finished up the screenplay for Fried Green Tomatoes.

It was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me because it was a big hit. It helped me get more book contracts and continue writing.

BAM: Your character development is fantastic. They’re so vivid. Are your characters a compilation of people you already know?

I think it’s a combination of people I know and relatives. One of my characters is based on my grandmother and my aunt. It’s not exactly the same person, but they’re based on real people.

In that first book, Bess Fortenberry, who was my great aunt, made an appearance. That character cracked me up so much that I wrote Fried Green Tomatoes about her.

BAM: The dialogue is something that makes them feel so real. How do you write such powerful dialogue between characters?

When I was a child, I was dyslexic. Because I couldn’t read, I had to listen very carefully to learn a lesson. And I learned from that.

In my books, probably my strongest suit is dialogue and how real people speak. I’m really fascinated with it. The way southerners use phrases will throw me in the floor. We have the most wonderful language. I love coming home and hearing people talk.

When you leave the south, people just say sentences and it’s sort of bland. Here you can have long conversations with someone you’ve never said hello to once in your life. They’ll tell you everything you want to know and a few things you don’t.

I love it. The art of conversation hasn’t died in the south, and I’m starved for that conversation.

BAM: Your characters are real people that you’ve met, and they make it into your books. Do real stories from your family and past make it into your novels as well?

Oh, absolutely!

The first book that I wrote was a memoir from my childhood. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the girl was me. My dad was there, and he really was a motion picture machine operator and bought a malt shop in Gulf Shores, AL. So although it was set in Mississippi, it was really Gulf Shores, AL.

BAM: How did The Whole Town’s Talking come to be?

Sure. So I write about that little small town. I was getting ready to write another book, and I was thinking those characters I had written about in that little small town. I just loved them so much, and I hated to say goodbye to them. But in the last book I wrote, I had killed off a few.

I was having some trouble coming up with a new story after that. My agent called and I told her I was having some trouble coming up with a new idea because I had killed off so many of my characters. There was a pause, and she said, “Well, Fannie, I wouldn’t let that stop me.”

Well that cracked me up, and I thought that’s true. So I didn’t let it stop me. When people read the book, they’ll understand. They continue on.

On a serious note, when we get to a certain age, we lose people we love. We don’t know where they are or what happens. So I like to think of them as continuing. At the end of the book, it says “The End . . . or maybe not.”

That’s how I really feel. Who knows? We can hope, but we don’t know.

BAM: The industry has changed quite a bit since you began. What advice would you give to young writers trying to get published?

The very good news is you can self-publish if you have to. When I started out, you had to have a publishing company behind you to get published. Today, you don’t.

My advice to young writers is instead of trying to get a huge publisher for your first book, go to a smaller publisher in your state. Go to a publisher like the University of Alabama Press or University of Mississippi Press or someone like that. Whatever state you’re living in, go first someone in your state and get published there.

If your book is good, it will take off. Even if you have to self-publish, if it’s good, it will take off.

You don’t have to have a big publishing company to sell your book anymore. We have the internet. You can sell your own books.

Fannie Flagg NEWS

Author Fannie Flagg calls Solvang her ‘muse’

Source; https://syvnews.com

There’s a funny story as to how Fannie Flagg discovered the joys of living in the Santa Ynez Valley, and she wanted to share it. She was living in Santa Barbara and was stuck, not in traffic on the 101, but stuck with writer’s block. Some friends had what they thought might be the answer. They drove the author of the best-selling “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe” to the Alisal Guest Ranch in Solvang, and left her there. With no car, no television set and no telephone, inspiration began to break through.

Before long, Flagg rented a house on the ranch and it became her go-to destination whenever it was time to get creative.

“I fell so in love with this place and was able to write,” Flagg said. “Solvang is my muse.”

On Sunday, June 18, Flagg will be trying to lead hundreds of aspiring writers on how to find their own muse, their own voice, when she is the keynote speaker at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SBWC).

Flagg’s association with SBWC, now in its 45th year, goes back to its earliest days. She gives it much credit for her success as a novelist.

Originally from Alabama, Flagg found early success as a staff writer for the television show “Allen Funt’s Candid Camera.” She was so funny behind the scenes she was moved to co-hosting the show with Funt. Her agent thought her future was in Hollywood and convinced Flagg to move west.

“I didn’t like Los Angeles,” Flagg said, wrinkling her nose at the memory.

She was getting ready to move back to New York when a friend suggested she join her for a drive up to Santa Barbara for lunch. It was love at first sight.

“It was so charming and pretty,” Flagg said. In short order, she bought “a little house” and moved in. It was 1975.

Flagg was then a TV regular, appearing on game shows like “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares,” and scripted series like “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” and “Fernwood Tonight.”

But writing and the appreciation of great writing was in her blood, so when shortly after settling into Santa Barbara she saw a flyer about author Eudora Welty speaking at the SBWC, she wanted to attend.

“She was my idol,” Flagg said of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Welty. “I didn’t understand I could just buy a ticket to hear her speak, so I registered for the whole thing.”

The first day of the conference was life-changing for Flagg. All the participants were given the assignment to write a short story inspired by the word “childhood.”

It was unsettling for Flagg who describes herself as so severely dyslexic she can’t spell. But she was afraid that if she didn’t complete the assignment, she wouldn’t get to hear Welty speak. Her answer was to write her short story in the voice of an 11-year-old girl, so that her spelling mistakes would be perceived as intentional. She won first place with none other than Welty handing her the prize.

“I was embarrassed. I felt like I cheated, that they thought I was so clever,” Flagg said.

The short story found its way to a publisher in New York who wanted her to turn it into a novel. She confessed to the publisher it was an impossible task because she couldn’t spell.

“He started laughing and said, ‘What do you think editors are for?’,” Flagg said, laughing at herself as she recalled the conversation.

That short story became her first novel, “Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man,” published in 1979.

“It all happened because of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. The teachers who were there were so kind and encouraging to me.”

Flagg, now with 10 novels to her credit, is one of those SBWC teachers who are encouraging and mentoring other writers as they work on fiction and nonfiction, comedy and screenplays.

“The Writers Conference is for inspiration,” she explained. “Writing is the loneliest thing in the world. I get students who don’t know if they’re writers. I tell them to examine why they want to write and to not be frightened by the question, ‘Are you a writer?’ If you’re not one, you won’t do it. It’s too hard. Students want to hear about how other people do it but I have to tell them, there are no rules. You have to do it the way you have to do it.”

For Flagg, whose latest book is 2016’s “The Whole Town’s Talking,” that means going straight to her computer in the morning, bypassing texts, phone calls and the 7 a.m. TV news. She’ll work four or five hours to the point she becomes mentally fatigued. It she gets stuck, she’ll put it down, trusting that her creative juices could return at any moment.

Flagg gives herself ample time off between books. She’ll travel or just hang out and people watch in Solvang, borrowing generously from what she’s seen and heard when she returns to the computer. “The Whole Town’s Talking,” for instance, has a Still Meadow Road (as does Solvang) and other local references. It’s about Swedish immigrants, a takeoff on Solvang’s Danish immigrants. She even names some of her fictional characters after her Solvang friends.